Tag Archives: featured

adventure, People, Texas

San Antonio, City of (At Least One) Angels

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Last night we were on our way back from Austin, after watching a bat exodus (more to follow), and our Dodge Caravan overheated about three miles from our KOA in San Antonio.  What followed was a series of events alien to my grown-up life: summoning a tow truck, trying to locate a taxi, trying to figure out where we were at an unfamiliar exit ramp in an unfamiliar town, and this morning, trying to decipher the baffling code of a city bus schedule.

Enter Rebar.  Rebar (I checked the spelling) is a tow truck operator in San Antonio.  When he arrived on scene last night, first he made sure that we would get back to camp ok  . Us being me, Jen, our three boys, and Shadow, our faithful dog.  Rebar said if we needed a place to stay, we could crash at his apartment.  He offered the kids chips from a bag he had in the cab.

Sometimes it takes a burp in one’s plans to realize how much goodness there is in the world.  Rebar is four months in the country from Kurdistan.  He speaks four languages, and his formal English is much better than mine. He fled Iraq finally, where he’d worked as an English translator for the U.S. Army.  Something about extremely short career expectations.

Now he is in San Antonio, learning his way around, and grateful to be here.  And so, need I add, are we.  At this hour, I don’t know what will become of the work on the car.  Will we have to end the trip to pay for a new engine? Were we mistaken to tow our car? Will we have to drive it from now on, and try to sell a tow dolly?  I hope not.

But we met an angel last night, in the midst of trying and failing to find a cab to come to the part of town we’d broken down.  I had the sensation, talking to Rebar, of reading The Life of Pi, and wondering, at the end, how much of Piscene’s tale was true, and how much was fanciful fiction designed to weave a more exciting tale, and in the case of Rebar, to maybe reap a better tip.

I prefer to believe in angels. Rebar is one.  That’s what my kids remember about our cramped, late-night drive,  and there is more than enough danger in the world for me to worry that they’ll arrive as adults overly innocent.  So thanks, Angel Rebar.  Welcome to America, and I hope you continue to be yourself here, for our sake.

featured, People

The Mystery of Family

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One of the main goals of traveling for us is to catch up with family scattered like dandelion seeds over the country.  From  Texas to Arizona to California to Colorado to Montana to New York.  We will miss Alabama and South Carolina and Florida this trip, but we are, after all, moving to Florida…IMG_20140330_194246_371

We talked over the picnic table last night about how strange it is that there are people in the world mommy and daddy have no relationship to, but when our kids are born, they instantly have uncles and great-aunts and cousins they will have for life.IMG_20140330_194304_377

My wife and kids have been meeting relatives, in some cases for the first time here in Dallas.  Strangers from a shared tribe open their homes and their emotional lives, and share all sorts of things, ask the most probing questions,  They are, after all, family.

Family often leaves clues.  My oldest is told affectionately that he has the mannerisms of Uncle Sandy, by a woman who’s not seen Sandy in decades.  Men who are grandparents are referred to by the names ten-year-olds carry.  Billy. Richie.

What invariably begins as the most awkward of conversations between complete strangers soon becomes surprisingly comfortable, after all.  Connections are discovered, both in the past and the present.IMG_20140330_183208_359

People spark friendships over the oddest things.  Dogs and campfires and roasted marshmellows. And tentative emails.  This is your niece.  We’ll be passing through in several weeks, and would like to see the gang…

Strangers become comrades, and partings are more genuine sadness than relief. Until next time…

 

Attractions, featured

The Sixth Floor

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I paid a pilgrimage yesterday, to the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.  And to Dealey Plaza visible out its windows.

Everything’s been said about November 22, 1963.  And still so many questions linger.  I looked for something new, for me, and found it. In listening to the inventory of items found at the window, I heard, for the first time, something I’ve probably heard a hundred times before: “…a partially consumed lunch.” Let’s see…maybe eat half my liverwurst and cheese, set up the boxes in the window…” If I live to be a hundred, so many elements of that day won’t compute.

Suffice to say if and when I ever make it to heaven, one of my first five questions will be, “…about Dallas, 1963….” and judging by the respectful crowd on a Tuesday morning in March 2014, I won’t be the only one.

As I walked the solemn exhibits, I wondered if the seniors around me in the museum were split as I was, so viscerally between the present and the past.  I have never been so emotionally impacted by a place before, and at my age, I have seen a lot of places.

I know how arrogant this next part will sound, but it’s the truth.  I had to come to the museum to make sure they got it right.  It is one thing to study history–the noble and the shameful elements that make up our today.

But Dallas is my history.  Just like millions of others my age and older, it happened to me.  I know that because images of those four days are poised in the wings of my mind, clear and young and indelible.  I lived it and live it.  And so I wanted to be sure they got it right.  For myself, and for my kids, about which 1963 is to them what World War I was for me: a chapter in a book.

Amazingly, they did get it right.

No display calls attention to the fact that Jack Kennedy was no saint. The exhibit is a shameless tribute to the man.  But it avoids the temptation to sidestep the host of  questions that linger about the many factions that both revered and reviled Kennedy, and how one young, career loser leans forward at the end of a chain of dark coincidences to set aside his sandwich and obliterate Camelot.

 

A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.

John F. Kennedy

February 8, 1963

 

adventure, Attractions, featured, Outdoors

No Fiery Diamonds in Hot Springs

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Sunday we packed up after a great week in Hot Springs, AR at the Catherine’s Landing RV Resort on Lake Catherine.  It still felt like a campground in many respects, but there were some new twists–at least for us novices.

One one side of the complex is an open-air pavilion that covers probably two acres.  In addition to a bathhouse that takes up a small bit of one corner, it has a host of picnic tables, and some large fire pits.  Since we had rain pretty steady for several days, it turned out to be the perfect place for the kids to ride scooters and meet other kids.  The resort included a frisbee golf course, which the kids also loved!

One evening my youngest and I shared a campfire with the Walker family from southern Arkansas.  Mike is the principal at Star City High School, and gathered with wife Jennifer and kids Emily and Caleb for a spring break gathering with family.  My youngest developed his first crush, on Miss Emily.

Can you guess what the assembled are up to here on a field in Murfreesboro: The Hunt ? We journeyed on a day trip to Crater of Diamonds State Park to stake our forIMG_20140328_154734_736tune.  Midway through it rained,  hard, so happily we’d not done the week’s laundry yet.  When the boys got bored panning for diamond chips, they moshed in the 37 acres of muck.

We wandered through the Fordyce Bath House Visitors Center in Hot Springs National Park and “quaffed the elixir.” Touring the basement for some reason reminded me of scenes from the Overlook Hotel in Stephen King’s The Shining.

On Saturday, the first sunny day, we loaded up the fishing gear and lunch on a pontoon boat out of Lake Catherine State Park.  Jen waphoto(14)s our captain, without complaint in the morning cold, until we realized she was frozen to the boat’s wheel.  Can you spot the turtle on the log behind Jen?

We are now in Dallas.  At 10:30 this morning, we are touring a place that I’ve known about since I was almost ten years old, but never seen in person: the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

 

 

adventure, Amusement Parks, Attractions, Outdoors

Dolled up in Dollywood

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I come to this post a bit conflicted.  Dollywood was highly recommended by several of our friends, and it had its share of really cool things.  We loved eating at Miss Lillian’s, never suspecting we’d be serenaded by the grand lady herself.  photo(10)Miss Lillian is charming, funny, and worth the price of admission. The chicken was great too!

The Dollywood Express, an artifact from the Alaska-Canada Railroad, took us up into the Smoky Mountains–the real draw for us here in the region.

On the five-mile loop, there was perhaps a half-mile that could be reached by foot from a public area. I had the good sense to dphoto(12)rop my phone in one of these rare spots just after taking this photo. Once again, I prove there is a God watching out for fools.  And it was a pretty ride.

The Wings of America bird show was extremely entertaining, and easily rivaled Busch Gardens.  The kids thoroughly enjoyed both the information and the show.  One of those rare education-disguised-as-entertainment moments.photo(11) They even had a bird that collected donations in its beak! NPR may want to consider something like it. A line formed quickly to give dollar bills to the Foundation.

On the minus side, we are spoiled by Busch Gardens and Hershey Park, with online apps to show ride locations and wait times.  The park map was hard to decipher, and did not include show times and locations.  We stumbled upon a great Mother Africa show that reminded me so much of Gymkana on America’s Got Talent!

Finally, the trams.  Granted, it was opening day, and the place was packed.  A woman working the tram line assured us that, even for a day when everyone knew Dolly would be there, this was a crowd no one expected.  But to be herded into one more serpentine line just to get to our car….photo(13)I guess I am a whiner sometimes after all.

So we have four days in Hot Springs.  Your suggestions?

adventure, Attractions

Gatlinburg, Tennessee

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Just a stone’s throw east of Pigeon Forge is the resort town of Gatlinburg. Both Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg have grown gangbusters since Franklyn Roosevelt designated the Great Smoky Mountains a park in 1940.  And both have attracted an astounding array of shops, attractions, and amusements to occupy every rainy day ’til the Rapture.

Speaking of rapture, The culture is a fascinating mix of overt Christian themes and symbols, and a reverence for all things Dukes of Hazzard.  In the midst of a grand log cabin facade on a row of shops is the message, Jesus Saves.  In Terry Evanswood’s Wonders of Magic at Wonderworks, he threatens jokingly at one point to lock the doors and preach for two hours.  (Read Jen’s and son 2’s review of the show here. )

Our kids delighted yesterday, returning from Gatlinburg’s very impressive Ripley’s Aquarium, in reading off the number of signs that advertised knives.  “Tobacco, beer, knives.” “Linens, moccasins, knives.” A dizzying array, including the selection for the discerning Christian: King James Knives. Open 24 hours. What do tourists do with all those knives?

For several wonderful hours yesterday we fished at Herbert Holt State Park outside of Gatlinburg, and our four-year-old made a steady stream of friends on the playground. IMG_6504Okay, we didn’t catch anything. But with the park rules limiting fishing to children only, nobody seemed to care much that fish weren’t biting.  It was a great spot for a picnic snack.

I expected the Ripley’s Aquarium to be, well, you know, two-headed sharks and blurred images of mermaids in grainy newsreels. Instead, I would have to say that while it lacked the grandeur of the National Aquarium,  the Japanese Crabs– about the size of a mastiff skeleton–were compelling, as was the exhibit devoted to slime in the natural world.

While twoIMG_1492 hours was probably enough, the collection is impressive, including a very cool feature that allowed the kids to control the sIMG_1527peed and direction of videos explaining the animals on display.  Nothing like watching a killer shark dismember a dolphin in slo-mo, then regurgitate the whole mammal, over and over!

adventure, Attractions

Pigeon Forge

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We rolled into Pigeon Forge just before dark on Saturday.  Two days of rain have given way to cool, sunny skies.  The main drag of Pigeon Forge must look much like Las Vegas at its heart, or Ocean City, Maryland, on steroids.  So many miniature golf, live shows, and attractions to choose from! Not really what we were seeking, and so incongruous here on the western foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains.IMG_6449

We are adjusting to motor home life.  Sunday, as my oldest and I considered how to raise the awning, I followed my son’s confused stare to a point behind me, where an older man was waving his arm’s in the international “stop what you’re doing before someone’s killed” sign.

Bill, from Ontario (do those Canadians loving driving or WHAT?), took a few minutes to set us right.  Since he didn’t seem to be in a hurry, i asked him about the secret workings of the hot water heater as well.  Now I can wash my dishes in hot water under the shade.  You never find this kind of friendly help at a Sheraton, I assure you.

IMG_6447We’ve done a couple day hikes, to commune with nature, and even taken in a couple of attractions . Each of the boys gets to choose one activity. Our youngest had to play miniature golf, and we had a great time at Gator Golf Putting Course.  

School’s starting soon, so see you after class!

 

 

 

 

Packing, sale

TEN MINUTES TO SPARE

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It is Saturday morning, day One. Every bone in my body is singing in protest, but gosh, what a great night’s sleep. This has been a week to remember—a tumultuous, relentless, exhausting, exhilarating, disappointing, sad week. We all feel like we got our money’s worth.

I think Jen and I decided at some point to keep things as normal as possible with the kids for as long as possible, so they went to school right up until Thursday, even though our home closing was yesterday, Friday, at nine am. Jen and I went to our jobs on Monday, the day the pod arrived. When I opened it, my heart sank. Even less room than I remembered.  And three days to go.

What followed for the next four days is a blur. Disassembling trampolines and basketball backboards and soccer goals; tearful hugs from neighbors and promises to write; a revolving door of early morning landfill runs and late-night goodwill drop-offs; farming out cats and lawn furniture; on the spot giveaways; and always, always, more piles materializing in the garage.

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Jen and I by Thursday morning were poster children for the Walking Dead. Shuffling out into the garage with one of a thousand items formerly referred to as miscellaneous. Our three boys retreated into a sulky, wounded place. Their faces mocked our decision of a sunny Mother’s Day morning so many months ago.

And in the end, the house was empty and forlorn and the motorhome was overpacked, ten minutes to spare. Ten minutes to remind myself that we are always, always being taken care of. Even when we forget. Ten minutes to say thanks, at all that has been, and yes, to all that will be.

Ten minutes to be grateful, beyond words, for the help of Bill and Alice, Cheryle and Eddie, Rich and Teresa, Eileen and Bill, Dave and Lori, and Theresa and all our family and friends who not only helped us realize our dream, but just made it so deeply painful to leave our home and town.

Once in Florida back in the day, I found myself in a chat with Jimmy, a guy in Bow Channel campground. I said I had to get home to an ECHO reunion, but hated leaving Florida.

“But don’t you know?” he said, “The best time to leave is when things are at their best. It makes me want to return, again and again.” If Jimmy was right, then we couldn’t have picked a better time to leave. Thanks, to all our wonderful neighbors and friends, and family.

Now, please join us on our travels. First stop, Mount Airy, Maryland!

Uncategorized

The Cousins’ Sleepovers

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IMG_1004If my kids have a favorite way to spend their time, it’s not xBox, youtube, or other forms of electronics. It’s—you guessed it—cousins’ sleepovers. My kids have lots of cousins. That’s because, in part, I have lots of siblings. In another blog I comment on my parents’ strict adherence to the Catholic Church’s stand on contraception: just say no! Being the oldest of eight was a hoot, and we all loved coming from a large family—well, liked it.  But none of us chose to try to duplicate my parents’ feat.

Only two of us have three kids, five of us have two kids, and one has none. That’s still makes 16 first cousins on my side. And, of course, one additional from Jen’s side. Go, Stella!

I am not sure why my kids love being with their cousins more than other kids they know. Maybe it’s the continuity. Maybe it’s the safety. Maybe it’s the logistics. Maybe I should ask them. And the coolest thing is that my siblings’ kids are having kids! Eight so far, and one in the oven! A girl, we hear.

Just as so many other clues exist for the end of an era, I suppose the children of my children will have much smaller sleepovers. We had so many at our final party in Eldersburg a week or so ago that we had to do the hot tub in two different shifts.

While more than a dozen kids at a sleepover might seem like parental-unit insanity, we’ve always enjoyed how much our kids are excited about it. It’s what they ask for when their birthdays are coming up. Or Christmas.  Is there a greater gift than family?

One of the many things we will miss about uprooting from a place we are so very content. My brother Mike says the cool thing about living far away is that, while you may miss family gatherings, when he does see family, it is usually for a week at a time.  I guess that’s a consolation.  Time will tell.

 

People

A Jewel in Altamont

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Yesterday my brother Dave, his son James, and I were driving across Illinois, bringing the motorhome from Boise, ID. We all agreed we’d like to try something non-chainlike. The GPS suggested a place called The Railroad Street Coffee Shop, on 120 Main Street in Altamont, Illinois. We happily drove past a McDonald’s, a Subway, and a few other chain shops, and into Altamont proper, past the playground and the quiet residences of the bucolic town, named from the Latin for City of Plain, and originally a part of Mound Township.

According to Wikipedia, William Henry Perrin wrote in 1883: “The name of Mound Township was bestowed upon it in consequence of what is known as the neighborhood of Blue Mound… [where] recently, the Government has erected a signal observatory upon it, some seventy-five to one hundred feet in height, from the top of which one may look across the States of Missouri and Arkansas and see the cowboys watching their herds on the prairies of Texas.”

We missed the cowboys yesterday, but found a cook’s mess that would have warmed a hungry cowpoke’s heart. When you walk in the door of the Open Door Diner (under new name and management, GPS!), the first thing that confronts you is the Wall of Shame, a vast poster board of those unfortunates who were bested by Gramps Challenge, an intimidating breakfast heap if ever one was concocted. A sampling of the epitaphs: Bigger shovels just fill the hole faster!! On the up side, I have breakfast for the week.  As of yesterday, four noble souls had conquered the Gramps Challenge, and lived to achieve a Certificate of Achievement.

The rules are simple:  You have 30 minutes. No trips to the bathroom. No help. No regurgitation (that would be messy). With roughly 700 miles to go before the trip was complete, we were not even tempted. But I did sample a concoction called Cooks Garbage Can.  It was huge, and heavenly.

Vennia and James are the husband-wife team that have owned and operated The Open Door Diner for the last three years. Yesterday, Vennia waited tables while James tended the grill. Their daughters also work there, and family members support missions to Cuba, Panama, and other far flung locations in support of their church.

In our haste to get from Point A to Point B with the minimum of fuss, we are losing something vital: experiencing the small Vennia-and-James establishments. Mom and Pop, who, while they understand the need to make a buck, also will whimsically concoct a creation that is a wonderful culinary grab bag, and who invest their lives into their work, their community, and their world.

Tonight is the gala fundraiser for the next mission effort coming up. Give generously, and trust me: Don’t be afraid to order anything on the menu at the Open Door Diner on Main Street, Altamont. And allow yourself enough time to gab with the proprietors. You’ll be glad you did.